New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
